+1 Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 7, 2010, at 7:56 PM, Cory Foy <cory....@gmail.com> wrote: > Ok, I like to propose a pause in action. > > Here's what we know. Jimmy has moved on, as has Jim. Tomas is the main person > left, and from the emails we've received, he's only working on it part-time. > I don't know the politics of this specific org, but being an ex-softie I do > have an idea, and that hunch is that the politics that caused the reshuffle > were not a conspiracy theory against IronRuby, but just normal organization > dysfunction and quarterly reorganization. > > We also know thay we have a community of people who are passionate about > IronRuby, and a secondary wave of people driven into action by the events of > the past day or so. It stands to reason, from work I've done in other > communties, that one or two will end up being long term participants because > of the new awareness. > > That said, I don't think that what we should do right now is fork it, since > IronRuby relies heavily on the DLR which wouldn't be controlled. This is not > to say that we take it off the table. Rather we need to ask ourselves what > holes have now opened up that we need to fill: > > 1) Jimmy provided leadership and vision for the project. We've now lost that, > and either Tomas will pick this up internally, or we will need an external > person to run with the vision. Regardless, the person will have to interface > with and understand the vision from the Microsoft side. > > 2) Tomas already mentioned needs like a CI and gatekeeper. I bet there are > lots of other needs, and if this is truly a community-owned movement, we need > to engage with Tomas and the remaining team to understand what else we're > missing. > > 3) IronRuby has likely taken a huge blow of credibility from the enterprise > adoption side, because if it isn't supported by Microsoft PSS, they will be > unlikely to use it internally or in their products. > > All three of these are vital points that we need to think about as a > community. Someone is going to have to step up to take charge of this - and > it's not going to come from the Mono side. Tomas may be willing to take > charge as much as possible - no one has asked him, and that's a shame. > > IronRuby has not had a heart attack which requires CPR. That means we need to > take a measured, levelheaded response as a community and work to understand > how we can help and how we can respond in a way that makes sense. We already > know from Jimmy's tweets that he's planning an email for the group - how can > we take advantage of the knowledge Jim and Jimmy have, and support the work > Tomas is doing? > > Finally, we may have a burst of energy right now, but no form of sprinting is > going to help solve this. This is not a "we have to take action now before we > lose the opportunity!" moment. The code is there. Many of the contributors > are there, and know what is going on internally. Let's collaborate and find a > way to make this project a real success. > > Cory > > > > On Aug 7, 2010, at 20:36, William Green <w...@hotgazpacho.org> wrote: > >> I agree with Michael here. As long as the canonical source for >> IronRuby lives in TFS behind the big blue firewall, with only MSFT >> employees as core committers, there is a problem. >> >> What I propose is that we, as a community, designate the github repo >> as the canonical one, and that whoever controls it opens up commit >> access beyond the MSFT core team, perhaps to those that have already >> had accepted contribution. (this may already be in place, I don't >> know) >> >> Bottom line is that MSFT has decided they no longer desire to invest >> in the project. If we want IronRuby, we're going to have to make it >> happen, on our own. >> >> -- >> Will Green >> http://hotgazpacho.org/ >> >> >> >> On Aug 7, 2010, at 8:00 PM, Michael Letterle <michael.lette...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> If Microsoft was simply sponsoring development and putting its stamp >>> on it, it wouldn't be a problem.. but the fact that MS "owns" it IS a >>> bottleneck, as been from the start. "Sync to TFS" commits make me >>> cringe everytime I see them. >>> >>> On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Jim Deville <jdevi...@microsoft.com> wrote: >>>> I guess I never really sent the mail that I meant to send about my >>>> progression. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Similar to Jimmy, I’ve also made the incredibly hard decision to move on as >>>> well. I’ve been working on the JavaScript team now for about 2 weeks. I’ve >>>> made this decision for many of the same reasons as Jimmy, but for various >>>> personal reasons, I decided to remain with MS instead of leaving. I will >>>> still be working with IronRuby, it just won’t be my primary function >>>> anymore. I also had a wonderful time on the team, and I will really miss >>>> working directly with them. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I agree that IronRuby is not a big community, but I don’t know that it is a >>>> problem unless we let it be one J. I also feel that MS owning the code >>>> isn’t >>>> a problem. It’s not like it really benefits anyone inside of MS, it >>>> benefits >>>> us, the users J. It also benefits the Ruby community at large if we >>>> continue >>>> to make IronRuby a great product that people want to use in their .NET >>>> applications, because it shows people Ruby J >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I understand that this is sad, and for some, expected L, but I hope that >>>> people still continue doing the awesome things people have been doing J >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> JD >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> From: ironruby-core-boun...@rubyforge.org >>>> [mailto:ironruby-core-boun...@rubyforge.org] On Behalf Of Orion Edwards >>>> Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2010 2:43 PM >>>> >>>> To: ironruby-core@rubyforge.org >>>> Subject: [Ironruby-core] "Start spreading the news" >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I'm sure most of you have seen this already, but I hadn't seen Jimmy's >>>> "farewell Microsoft" blog post posted to the list, so here it is if anyone >>>> hasn't read it >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/08/start-spreading-news-future-of-jimmy.html >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I'd like to thank Jimmy for his work thus far on IronRuby, and certainly >>>> wish you the best of luck at your new job and living in NYC. From that >>>> point >>>> of view, it's happy days. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> The news about Microsoft's internal handling of IronRuby however makes me >>>> rather sad, and frankly a bit worried about the future of IronRuby in >>>> general. If there's now only 2 part-time developers working on IR inside >>>> Microsoft, and they've been told not to develop any new features, then >>>> where >>>> does that leave us? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> While IronRuby is open source (yay), It unfortunately hasn't seem to have >>>> become quite big enough (unlike JRuby) to be self sustaining. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I personally also perceive somewhat of a problem, in that (again, unlike >>>> with JRuby) Microsoft "owns" IronRuby. Last I knew, committers still had to >>>> sign a copyright assignment form to MS, and MS controls all the >>>> repositories >>>> and other assorted stuff. (AFAIK Charles has personally controlled all the >>>> JRuby repos since day one and still does). >>>> >>>> This provides a LARGE (to me at least) disincentive to contribute to >>>> IronRuby in the future. Because MS owns IronRuby, I feel like if I were to >>>> commit code, it would not be for the benefit of a nice friendly >>>> community-driven open source group, it would be for the benefit of >>>> Microsoft >>>> Corporation. >>>> >>>> I was happy to accept this when MS were putting a lot of work into >>>> IronRuby, >>>> but now that they're not, my feeling is "So Microsoft have bailed and left >>>> us hanging, why on earth would I want to do work on their behalf after >>>> they've just done that?" >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> At any rate, I've not committed any code to IronRuby (I've come close >>>> several times, but never just had the time) so my opinion is largely >>>> irrelevant, I just hope that other potential committers with more time and >>>> skill than I don't end up feeling this way too :-( >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Ironruby-core mailing list >>>> Ironruby-core@rubyforge.org >>>> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Michael Letterle >>> IronRuby MVP >>> http://blog.prokrams.com >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Ironruby-core mailing list >>> Ironruby-core@rubyforge.org >>> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core >> _______________________________________________ >> Ironruby-core mailing list >> Ironruby-core@rubyforge.org >> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core > _______________________________________________ > Ironruby-core mailing list > Ironruby-core@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core _______________________________________________ Ironruby-core mailing list Ironruby-core@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core
